The Firelord Drinks First
by ManofManyHats
Summary: Oleander, snakeroot, belladonna, white jade; it's the poison in his teapot and the cyanide on his plate. Zuko learns his killers by name.


_AN: Searching up poisons was quite a macabre thing to do in the name of fanfiction, but it was actually pretty interesting. Damn plants, you scary. I used a mix of Avatar and real world flora, but I did take some creative license with the poisons, so don't press on me too hard. This was also written in one sitting, so take from that what you will._

* * *

It's clear from the first assassin that there is no shortage of people looking to kill the new Firelord. The assassins are flashy, driven by mad desires or hired by those who can't risk dirtying their own hands. They cause an uproar, make him jump at shadows for a few days, but as long as he has his two hands in front of him, he knows he can hold his own.

Those willing to play the long game, he learns, prefer poison.

It was always a risk, he knew, that's what the guards and the staff and the food tasters are for. All of that, however, means little when a waiter slips it in at the table, or when it is the taster that wants him dead, and that was the case the first time.

He has his uncle and his insistence of appreciating tea to thank. There is something off, a strange bitterness he tastes the very second the drink reaches his tongue. He only drinks a sip, but he is up for two nights retching his insides out.

White jade, notoriously similar to the white dragon bush which made a delectable tea, but deathly toxic. He remembers the first time they line up the wait staff, and even as the poison still burns in his stomach, he knows it will not be the last time.

His mother becomes irreplaceable in preparing him for this. She was a herbalist, the creator of the colorless, tasteless, odourless poison that killed Azulon, a closely guarded secret, so it is hardly surprising. It was a strange way for a mother and son to bond, but it was a necessity, and Ursa thinks it is the very least she could do to teach him after having left him undefended for so long.

They go through every poison she knows, how they smell, how they look, how one drop tastes. He studies the black shine of the maka'ole berry, the same black you'd see from the blindness it causes. He knows the bitter of oleander, the burn of boiled cherry pits, the mouth-drying sweet of nightshade. He can spot the leaves of monkshood they try to sneak into a salad, the hemlock they feign as garnish.

He memorizes the sight and taste of his meals, tells the cooks not to try something new without telling him. He learns all his attendants by name, knows who is loyal and knows who he needs to watch out of the corner of his eye. He does all he can, but the attempts get more elaborate.

Sometimes, the assassins don't even step into the palace. The palace cattle supply was once fed full of white snakeroot, till every piece of flesh on their bodies is lean with toxin. He loses a food taster to it. They never find the culprit. He nearly starves himself out of paranoia.

His mother pulls him back to study, tells him if he is to die of poison, at least let him have the honor of knowing his killer's name. (And they have beautiful names - belladonna, wolfsbane, white jade, richweed - too beautiful for his liking.) One day, she teaches him the bane to her own poison. Though tasteless and odorless and colorless, a concoction she brews can be used as an indicator. A drop of the white liquid turns to a black residue in the presence of the poison. She provides him with a vial of it, and he dribbles a drop of it in his tea at every meal.

The years pass. The attempts as a whole begin to lessen as his nation settles, or perhaps he's just gotten better at detecting them before they happen. The worry at meals begins to drain away, he gives less sideline glances and the drop in his tea never comes back black. Until, of course, it does.

Aang and Katara stop at the palace, and he'd promised them rest if they ever came to visit. He tells them to leave the kids for the day, and he schedules an afternoon to spend watching them.

Izumi, Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin play in the palace garden till the sun begins to dip, and he calls them to the lawn to join him for drink of tea and a plate of sweets. Izumi, as a good host does, pours the cups as the others sit bouncing on their feet waiting to jump up and play again. He tells her thank you when she fills his cup. He pours a drop from the vial in his pocket out of habit.

The black dust settles on the bottom of the teacup. The kids clink their glasses and laugh.

Zuko's hands flare out like a madman, wrenching the cups from the two closest to him. Izumi and Tenzin stare at their empty hands. In the silence, he takes the cups from Kya and Bumi as well.

His face is white as a sheet, and the children stare in confusion. The Firelord has always been gentle with them, always careful and composed, and now there is tea spilling in his lap and a tremor in his hands. Something is wrong. Had they done something wrong?

Izumi hides her terror behind a mask her mother would be proud of. Tenzin, the youngest, looks close to crying. And Zuko will not let them know.

The color starts to return to his skin, the horror in his face is traded for a smile.

 _Where are your manners?_ He says, trying to turn the knot in his throat into a laugh. _The Firelord always drinks first._

The kids ease, smiling, looking down embarrassed at their lack of manners and uncalled-for fear. They were happy to leave it at that. A feigned scolding turned into a joke.

Behind his back, Zuko pours the cups out on the lawn. The tea is cold, he says. He'll get more for them, just go play for a while, and promise him, _promise_ , that they won't try any of the treats before he gets back, alright? _Yes,_ they answer, and scatter.

Zuko stands, holds the teapot like the poison it is with one hand on the handle and the other over the lid. He chokes back a sob.

Agni. Poison in the children's tea. They'd poured the glasses already. The kids had toasted. Agni help him. If anything had happened to them… he would have… Oh, Agni. The children's tea. _The children's tea._

His knuckles are white and his face stone as he walks into the palace kitchen. He shatters the teapot on the floor.

Zuko fires every member of the cook and wait staff. He brews a new pot of tea himself, in the empty kitchen, and joins the kids outside with a plastered smile.

They rehire most of the staff after a few days, once they imprison the bastard who'd done it, but the fury he'd felt that day made it impossible to feel any guilt about his actions. If anything had happened to those children, he would have ordered a firing line with himself as the first to be shot.

He tells their parents, of course, since he can't possibly hide the fact that the palace had become uninhabited in the course of an afternoon. They know about the attempts on his life, naturally, but perhaps not the truth of their frequency, and the fact that one had almost spilled over to their children leaves them still with horror. He's sure they shed tears over it, away from his eyes, away from the children's eyes, but they thank him for saving them. The thanks burns in his stomach worse than poison. No, he didn't save anyone. All he did was almost get them killed.

He never does tell the kids. There was no reason for them to know, not when they grow to have enough things to worry about. They still joke about 'The Day the Palace was Empty'.

And even into their adulthoods, whenever they visit and join him for dinner, they raise a glass up to him and smile.

"The Firelord drinks first."


End file.
